Blogs

Like most psychology teachers, I simply do not have the time or inclination to read numerous psychology journals but still like to keep up to date with the latest research which is relevant to my teaching. Thankfully Christian Jarrett, editor of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest, has created an excellent blog for psychology teachers and students. On the blog Christian provides wonderful summaries of recent research and links to the actual research articles if you want to delve deeper. The blog now has a regular readership who are more and more starting to make comments about the articles. If like me you become a fan of the digest you can subscribe to the blog and you will find that there are a number of ways that you can do this.

We asked Christian about his incredibly successful blog and this is what he had to say.

So many journals, so much new research, but so little time? Fear not – the British Psychological Society’s free Research Digest service trawls through the world’s journals so you don’t have to. Each fortnight the BPS sends out an email crammed with fun reports on the latest psychology studies relevant to the A-level syllabus. Also, recent additions to the service include – ‘Extras’, which are links to eye-catching studies that didn’t make the final cut; ‘the Special Issue Spotter’, which flags up new journal issues that are devoted to a specific topic; and ‘Elsewhere’, which gives you links to psychology-related magazine and newspaper articles that are freely available on the web.

The Research Digest is also available online as a blog, allowing you to comment on featured research and to subscribe by RSS feed. Some of the reports in the Digest – such as the case of the man who became a human chameleon after suffering brain damage, or the experiment that showed wiggling your eyes back and forth can improve your memory – have become so popular they’ve been picked up by other media organisations around the world, like the New Scientist blog, the American news channel MSNBC, and even German internet TV.

On top of all that, the Digest occasionally features guest articles specifically tailored for students. There are links to these on the blog. So far there have been features on psychophysics, twin studies, psychology podcasts and using the web. Forthcoming is an item on psychology studies conducted in virtual worlds, and a guide to systematic reviews. Also, every now and again the Digest hosts special anniversary projects. Last year, to mark its 3rd birthday, the Digest asked the world’s leading psychology bloggers to discuss an experiment from the last three years that inspired them or that changed the way they think. Later this year, another project is planned to coincide with the 100th issue. The topic is top secret but is guaranteed to be fun – - if you don’t want to miss it, make sure you subscribe to the Digest email or blog!

If you are a teacher of any of the psychology specifications you should find Christian’s blog invaluable. However if you teach the OCR specifications Jamie Davies has set up psychblog.co.uk which is a blog similar to Christian’s but with a focus on research which relates to the OCR specifications. As with Christian’s blog you can also subscribe to psychblog to ensure that you do not miss any new research.